OSX Sales Solutions

Building sales organizations and mentoring the team for optimum sales success

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How to Create Bottom-up Revenue Goals that Make Sense

It’s that time of the year. Sales leaders are with their salespeople in the trenches driving hard to finish a strong Q4 and executives are looking forward as they establish their 2023 annual revenue goal.

I observe owners and executives in my small and mid-sized business target market falling into two different groups as they review how their current year has played out. While Q4 is still active, predicting an outcome is practical by considering current sales pipeline volume and deal positioning.

The group that is on-track to meet their revenue target took a logic-driven approach to developing their goal. This resulted in their sales leaders being equipped to develop cohesive sales plans that accounted for the various revenue goal segments. The key to this success is that these sales leaders were also effective at implementing and executing their plans.

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Can a CRM Really Fix My Sales Team?

If you keep hearing that you need to upgrade your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to hit your sales goals, this article should help you avoid the staggering CRM failure rates abundantly published through the years.  

Can a CRM Really Fix My Sales Team? The answer is simple… No. 

CRM effectiveness remains a problem across all business sectors. As cited by Gartner in July-2022, “Too frequently, sales leaders purchase sales technology on faith, believing that just by installing the technology they will drive better outcomes. In reality, Gartner research shows that just 24% of companies believe that their sales technology implementation is optimized.”  

So how does a sales organization know they are ready to deploy a CRM to ensure they can expect strong ROI from the investment?   

There are several affordable and viable subscription-based CRM systems available today. The actual monthly cost and implementation fees are a small portion of the true investment. The bigger impact is the disruption to selling time and the notable distraction to the sales leader. Plus, the ongoing operating cost (time and money) to keep the system running smoothly should also be considered. The bottom line is this…  

It’s revenue-critical to focus on new CRM implementations, or large-scale retrofits, in the right “order of things” to realize anticipated ROI.

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Converging Generations in Your Sales Team

Recently I found myself in a small group of business leaders who confided in me that they were having trouble relating to some of the younger generation members on their sales teams. They were acknowledging that the values within their diverse teams simply weren’t aligned like they once were.

There was no question that they saw the unique value the new generations brought to their companies. These top executives diagnosed the problem being… ‘THEMSELVES’ and their own struggle to learn how to effectively lead the convergence of multi-generations in their organizations.

Exploring this further with my Fractional Sales Leader colleagues across North America, we found this struggle broadly effecting seasoned sales leaders.  Collectively, we captured our learnings around how to navigate the fact that varying age groups naturally have different work styles and intrinsic motivators.

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How Do I Engage Sales in Lead Generation?

How Do I Engage Sales in Lead Generation?

Lead generation and its correlating sales activities is at the core of my Fractional Sales Leadership practice. I encounter questions about this subject from business owners and top executives regularly.

I began covering this hot topic in a previous blog. To review, lead generation should be an ongoing activity, no matter what your sales results are showing. If your company is committed to growth, it needs a robust and diversified lead generation strategy and execution plan year-round.

To refresh on these fundamentals, check out my previous article where they are outlined in more detail-How Do I Generate More Qualified Leads?.

In this sequel piece, I am focusing on the key lever that generates the highest impact on lead generation ROI: How to engage your salespeople in the critical function of lead generation.

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How Do I Generate More Qualified Leads?

In the sales world, lead generation should remain a consistent focus. Whether your company is facing good times or bad, a strong lead generation strategy and execution plan is key to maintaining a healthy sales pipeline, that ensures you’ll meet your long-term revenue goals. 

The integration of marketing and sales functions is essential in today’s digital business climate. Prospects have become more savvy buyers. This has resulted in the need for marketing and sales to partner, so sellers are equipped with more targeted, intentional, and impacting content resources.  

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HOW DOES A FRACTIONAL VP SALES MAKE AN IMPACT

Many small and medium-sized business owners can have great frustration over their sales results. When they learn about a sales builder who can help, like myself, they are curious to learn more. During our initial conversation they often have the following two reactions.

First, they recognize that my diagnosis of what’s causing their sales to underperform is different than the symptoms they’ve been chasing for years. Then, as they learn about the root causes of their issues, they feel a sense of relief. They grasp the solutions I outline that other businesses have applied to convert into a predictable sales environment. 

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